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Well, firstly, I am super thrilled that Ayu passed the 50k mark. Considering I expected it to sell almost 10k less. So, that's a big deal. This is a very low drop in sales for her, so she did something right this time, and it reflects.
Onto the rest of it: I like Kana, and I think she's talented, but I think she is really becoming a one-trick pony. Most of her songs are about love, and it's already hurting her sales to be singing about it so much. It was a huge selling point due to her style for her first two albums, but I think the super sharp fall in sales for Thank you, Love and Love Place were not coincidental. She's a great artist, but I think she is still finding her niche outside of this subject. She hasn't had much grand interest in songs like GO FOR IT!! or We Don't Stop. I hope she finds an upbeat, non-love-theme style that propels her. I think, out of all the artists, music fans will be most receptive to Kana transiting to a different style of music. People love her and she really is the new Ayu while being quite different from Ayu.
Namie just sounds tired at this point. It's either time for her to get off the EDM or time for her to fade out like everyone else. She has such a powerful image and presence though, so I'd like to hope that the next album will not follow in the same sound as PAST < FUTURE, Uncontrolled, FEEL, and _genic. I like when Namie does a hot dance track, as only she can seem to do. Uncontrolled was a HUGE stretch for me, especially when she put the bastardized versions of GO ROUND and YEAH-OH on there while the originals were of much better quality. FEEL came off as filled with filler songs, nothing magical apart from Alive, Contrail, and Hands On Me. But _genic, or _generic as I love-and-hatingly refer to it, is over-saturated... way over-saturated with really generic lyrics. I will give _genic two major props though: It has a couple of Namie's amazing sweat-drenching EDM tracks on it, and she manages to sing about a lot of different subjects. I also liked her experimental track with Hatsune Miku. It was a nice throwback to the off-beat production on tracks like Dr. I wish Namie did more experimental work like Dr. and B Who I Want 2 B. That style is very unique to her as an artist, and I think she could do some amazing things with it.
Overall, what still sells me about Ayu over anyone else is the variety on every album. I love A ONE for being EDM, piano ballad, rock, acoustic rock, dream pop, dream ballad, trance/techno, and ethereal all at different points. It makes Ayu records an adventure. I wasn't into WOML, with LOVE, or _genic because they feature maybe one or two variations on the same genre of music. And while Ayu has done some stuff that seems bland, her singles are usually never a good indication of what the whole album will sound like. That's not an attribution I can assign to Koda, Namie, or Kana.
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